The present invention relates to real-time text based communications (e.g., instant messaging and chat) and, more particularly, to dynamic proximity based text exchanges or messaging within a group session.
A number of different forms of real-time text based communication techniques exist, such as instant messaging, chat, mobile text messaging, and the like. Some of these text exchange technologies permit group sessions, where three or more people can concurrently exchange text in real-time. Additionally, some of these text exchange technologies permit an exchange of video, voice, and other forms of communication in addition to text. Throughout the disclosure, the term “text exchange” and “group text exchange” has been used to generically refer to the real-time exchange of text using any of a variety of specific technologies (chat based technologies, instant messaging technologies, mobile text messaging technologies, etc.) In places where specific examples are given, specific types of text exchanges have been referenced, but it should be understood that those examples are non-limiting and that other forms of text exchange communication can be substituted for those examples.
Traditional real-time text exchange (text exchange, chat, etc.) tools available in market today support a one to one sessions as well as multi-person or group sessions. Group sessions allow people to have text-based conversations with multiple people simultaneously. Some applications allow passive participation where a user can be added as observer, such that the user can only view the exchanged text messages but cannot participate (e.g., send messages). In all cases, messages from any participant within a group are broadcast to all other participants of the text exchange session (e.g., every participants can view every message that another participant sends out).
Many times during a group text exchange session, participants prefer to communicate some messages to a subset of the participants (e.g., observers, team members) associated with the group. For instance, a moderator of a group session cannot have a private discussion with a sub-group of participants easily. Currently, available chat tools require a user to start a new communication session with the intended set of two or more communicators. This creates additional overhead on the user, as well as the server (e.g., additional chat or text exchange session). Frequently, the user can lose context when switching between multiple sessions. Further, users are prone to using the wrong session's communication interface and sending a message to unintended recipients.